SINGAPORE: Southeast Asian foreign ministers urged Myanmar to give a commission of inquiry into the violence in Rakhine state full mandate to hold those who are responsible accountable, Singapore said on Tuesday.
The ministers, who met informally on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week, expressed grave concern over the violence, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan told parliament, calling it “man-made humanitarian disaster.”
Over the last year, more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh, according to UN agencies, following a military response to attacks on security posts by Rohingya insurgents.
UN investigators issued a report in late August accusing Myanmar’s military of gang rapes and mass killings with “genocidal intent” in Rakhine and called for the country’s commander-in-chief and five generals to be prosecuted under international law. Myanmar has denied most of the allegations in the report, blaming Rohingya “terrorists” for most accounts of atrocities.
“We expressed our grave concern with these alleged acts of violence... This is a man-made humanitarian disaster and something which should not be happening in this day and age,” Balakrishnan said, referring to the meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar.
“The foreign ministers urged the Myanmar government that...an independent commission of inquiry...should be given a full mandate to investigate and to hold all those responsible fully accountable.”
Myanmar established a commission of inquiry to probe allegations of human rights abuses in Rakhine in July which includes two local and two international members from Japan and the Philippines.
ASEAN, formed more than half a century ago, has historically struggled with challenges facing the region because it works only by consensus and is reluctant to get involved in any matter deemed to be internal to any of its members.
Its recent joint statements on Rakhine have focused on the importance of the repatriation of displaced persons to Myanmar and reconciliation among communities.
But amid the international condemnation, it appears to be taking a firmer stance on Rakhine.
Balakrishnan said that if left to “fester,” the situation in Rakhine could lead to the spread of terrorism which would threaten “Southeast Asia and beyond.”
“They (the Myanmar government) do need to do the right thing ... for all the vulnerable, defenseless and innocent victims,” said Balakrishnan.
“It is also a salutary warning to all of us in Southeast Asia — race, language and religion are live issues and can always be exploited for short-term political gains but unfair share of the burden and of the injuries are sustained by defenseless people.”
Singapore chairs ASEAN this year and its leaders will meet next month in the city-state.
ASEAN urges accountability for violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine
ASEAN urges accountability for violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine
- The ASEAN ministers expressed grave concern over the violence, calling it ‘man-made humanitarian disaster’
- UN investigators issued a report in late August accusing Myanmar’s military of gang rapes and mass killings with ‘genocidal intent’ in Rakhine
NATO wants ‘automated’ defenses along borders with Russia: German general
- That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone,” said Lowin
- The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said
FRANKFURT: NATO is moving to boost its defenses along European borders with Russia by creating an AI-assisted “automated zone” not reliant on human ground forces, a German general said in comments published Saturday.
That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone” where traditional combat could happen, said General Thomas Lowin, NATO’s deputy chief of staff for operations.
He was speaking to the German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The automated area would have sensors to detect enemy forces and activate defenses such as drones, semi-autonomous combat vehicles, land-based robots, as well as automatic air defenses and anti-missile systems, Lowin said.
He added, however, that any decision to use lethal weapons would “always be under human responsibility.”
The sensors — located “on the ground, in space, in cyberspace and in the air” — would cover an area of several thousand kilometers (miles) and detect enemy movements or deployment of weapons, and inform “all NATO countries in real time,” he said.
The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said.
The German newspaper reported that there were test programs in Poland and Romania trying out the proposed capabilities, and all of NATO should be working to make the system operational by the end of 2027.
NATO’s European members are stepping up preparedness out of concern that Russia — whose economy is on a war footing because of its conflict in Ukraine — could seek to further expand, into EU territory.
Poland is about to sign a contract for “the biggest anti-drone system in Europe,” its defense minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Kosiniak-Kamysz did not say how much the deal, involving “different types of weaponry,” would cost, nor which consortium would ink the contract at the end of January.
He said it was being made to respond to “an urgent operational demand.”
